I've been thrilled with my new Nagra Classic amp driving my Altairs.
Admranger, I think any large speaker likes some room to breathe. The Aviors are amazing also... |
Only a year late to the thread, but Rockports need some room to breathe, don’t they? I heard the Altairs at the Sound Environment in Omaha, NE, and they were driven by a set of beautiful D’agostino pre and power amp. Speaker cables were transparent -- they were huge cables w/some big boxes integrated into them.
Anyway, the Rockports were a good 6’ off the back wall and likely an equal distance from the side walls in the listening room. They sounded glorious and ruined me for life. They were humongous, but they simply disappeared listening to them. Vanished. Soundstage breath and depth was enormous. Very detailed but not fatiguing. I was in lust and needed therapy to get over not being able to take them home (they wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment on the plane...).
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Sure you don't Knghifi ;;-)). No axes around here? |
I have the Aviors driven by the Wavac HE 833 Mk1.2 mono blocs in a 14x23x10 room and the sound even discounting for owner bias is ...impressive.
Another option to ponder |
02-22-15: Ptss
Soix. Rockport make a big deal of using a certain "copycat" company's internal wiring; but it nowhere near the best available. Gotta ask "what does ultimate quality have to do with it?" And then ask "in addition to that?" Hmm. I think Rockport uses Transparent for internal wiring so don't understand your comment. |
This is not to say I don't have very high regard for Rockport.... |
Soix. Rockport make a big deal of using a certain "copycat" company's internal wiring; but it nowhere near the best available. Gotta ask "what does ultimate quality have to do with it?" And then ask "in addition to that?" Hmm. |
Can you integrate speakers like the Altairs into a 17x14 room? Seems like an awful lot of speaker for that space. I auditioned them in a room twice that size and they pressurized it pretty good with some big Boulder amps. I'd have to heavily consider Gryphon since it's an amp so highly regarded by the speaker's designer. Best of luck and I'm jealous. |
Hi Jeff(Jwm),
Friendly suggestion, you should update your system pictures. You've had the Altair- Absolare combo for quite some time.
Charles |
Kurt,
I heard these speakers driven by the VAC Phi 300.1 configured as mono blocks 300 watts per side. This is a very good pairing but it isn't up to the Absolare Passion level of performance/presentation in direct comparison. The Lamm push pull 100watt/channel amplifier wasn't close to the VAC/s sound when heard in the same system. Perhaps the hybrid Lamm is the better Lamm for the Altair. YMMV as always.
Charles, |
My friend uses the Lamm M2.2 monoblocks to drive his Rockport Antares speakers. These are actually 220 wpc hybrid amplifiers, but with only one tube in each amp, (a 6922 tube to be specific). Being a hybrid amp it combined the power of solid state with a touch of tube sound. These amps are some of the best amps we've heard with these speakers. Only the (150 wpc stereo tube) VAC Phi 300.1 amp was comparable out of the half dozen or so he auditioned.
Good luck in your search. |
Charles is right in saying that a solid state amp may give a little more grunt in the upper mids; after all the speakers go down to 2 ohms in the 40 to 100 hz range. One could add a subwoofer if they feel that they need more in this area while using it with a tube amp. |
At the Las Vegas SHOW in 2013 I heard the Altairs driven by the MSB solid state mono blocks (200 watts/channel) the sound was okay, nothing special. When these amps were replaced with the Absolare Paaion amplifiers PSET (50 watt/channel) the improvement was profound, no other way to describe it. This was a transformation that simply raised that room/system to a different level. They received numerous "Best Room Sound Of Show" awards. The presentation became alive, involving, 3D naturalness and realistic (excellent tonality and timbre). The dry, flat and 2D uninvolving sound was gone! It was quite a contrast to hear in person, no other variable was changed, just the amplifier swap.
I've had the opportunity to heard this Absolare Passion-Altair pairing in a friend's system many (enjoyable) times in the past 18 months and it is marvelous. I'm unaware of any SS amp that would likely match this superbly natural fleshed out result. Some SS amps will provide more bass weight/impact but that's about it in terms of advantage IMHO.
Best of Luck, |
Oh yeah, Rockports have shown with Absolare tube gear in the last few years quite a bit. At CES 2015, the Rockport Cygnus was driven by Diagastino amps. |
Andy Payor at the Rockport voicing and listening room uses Gryphon amps. Others have said the combo is great.
Ebm is probably correct too - bet Pass would be a great match.
I currently have ARC Ref 250's and have Rockport Cygnus on order - hopefully to arrive in May/June. My room is 15x21x9 and the Cygnus is smaller than the Altair. For your room size of 17x14, you should have no trouble driving them as loud as you want, even with a modest amp. |
I was showing in the room with the really big Rockports, the Hyperions, that were driven by two sets of tube electronics to very good effect. The tube amps were Tenor. |
Pass 350.8 wonderful,musical,great stage depth etc. or Pass 250.8. |
I use the soulution 711 and it's superb with the altairs. Rockport use gryphon amps |
Just curious -Does Rockport demo it's speakers and then just ask with what?
I don't know what your budget is and whether you can afford what Rockport uses, but I will take a leap of faith and guess it's an SS amp which is expensive and big, heavily biased to play in class A.
What amps do you like yourself any preferences? |
